The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
THE LAST WORD | ANDREW M. MWENDA | At the beginning of January, I drove from Kabale to Rukungiri, Bushenyi, Kaseese, Fort Portal, Kyenjojo, Mubende, Mityana and Kampala. Then in the last week of the election, I was joined by Prof. Melina Platas of New York University and Prof. Jude Kagoro of Bremen University. We drove through Kayunga to Jinja, Iganga, Busia, Tororo, Mbale, Soroti, Lira, Gulu, Pakwach, Masindi, Hoima, Kagadi, and back to Fort Portal. We talked to ordinary citizens, campaign agents, security officials, religious leaders – people from all walks of life – to get a feel of what was happening.
This is a two-part series of my reflections from this experience. The issues that I raise in this article – how Museveni organizes and manages elections and how the opposition responds – tend to raise high emotional and political passions. Some readers will be curious to know where I stand on these issues and which of the two main candidates I favor. So what political and emotional baggage am I carrying? The answer is simple: when it comes to emotional baggage, my preference is to travel light. My strategy while gathering information and shaping my views for/in this article has been to suspend my judgement in order to gain understanding. I seek to first understand and then analyze, rather than to advocate or condemn. Yet I cannot deny that I am free from bias and/or prejudice.
Two men faced off in Uganda’s political ring over the last five years: Robert Kyagulanyi (hereinafter referred to by his stage name, Bobi Wine) and President Yoweri Museveni. One had run elections six times; the other only once. Yet there was little or no change in the way the incumbent organized the election and how his main challenger responded.
Since he came to power, Museveni has presented his opponents with a dilemma. Long before polling begins, he uses the might of the state – its financial resources, propaganda institutions and security forces – to create a field where his opponents have little or even no chance of success. The opposition are blocked, obstructed, frustrated, impeded, etc., from building party structures, accessing radio stations upcountry, raising money, registering members, opening branches, etc. While his opponents are wont to claim that he steals their votes on polling day, these obstacles give the president a crushing advantage long before polling day. Therefore, to complain that he steals their votes on polling day sounds as if the rest of the campaign process was free and fair.
Thus, for the opposition, the dilemma is big: should they participate in an unfree and unfair electoral process in which they are certain to lose and thereby legitimize a sham election but have a chance to traverse the country and present their grievances and ideas on the national political agenda within the limits imposed upon them? Or should they boycott the entire process to deny it legitimacy but thereby lose an opportunity to make themselves heard by the people and therefore sink into political oblivion? The opposition has always made a strategic choice which I agree with, i.e., chosen to participate. However, after legitimizing the process, they fail to make the next step: to concede defeat under its rules and find a way to work with the then “elected” government as a loyal opposition.
Thus, my assertion of Museveni’s victory is within this context: of how the entire electoral process is organized over the years, not on the basis of the campaign period. Yet I feel that even within the limits imposed on them, Bobi Wine and his NUP had a chance to perform better, to increase their share of the vote compared to 2021. The point I am making is that Museveni’s obstructions should not blind us to the gross incompetence and many false assumptions that shape NUP’s approach to politics.
It was clear from the beginning that Bobi Wine and his NUP had little or no chance. But this has little to do with what Museveni did. It had a lot to do with what NUP did or did not do. Why? Museveni’s methods in every election are known and predictable. For instance, Museveni always puts many roadblocks in the way of his main challenger, which I have already enumerated above. These obstacles make it very difficult for his opponents to organize and/or mobilize supporters. Then he uses the resources of the state conveniently deployed near election time to win over voters. Everyone knows this is Museveni’s tool kit. Everyone expects it.
Surprisingly, the opposition’s reaction to Museveni’s election methods has also remained the same and predictable. They try to get onto radio stations and are stopped. They plan rallies that are violently broken up. Then cry foul at these unfair tactics and make moral appeals to the press, the people and the international community, seeking and getting sympathy. True, these cries attract public attention and sympathy, but nothing more. After 30 years of these same cries, one would expect opposition politicians to find new and novel ways to beat the system or work with it.
No one changes their winning strategy unless and until it ceases to help them win. It follows that Museveni has no reason to change his strategy. It is the opposition that always loses. It follows, therefore, that it is they that need to change their strategy and tactics. They haven’t. The challenge facing the opposition, and Bobi Wine therefore, was how to respond to the specific way Museveni conducts his election campaign. It is not profitable to use the same strategies and tactics that have failed to deliver constantly improving performance year after year. What is amazing is that Bobi Wine did not change his ways. Like Kizza Besigye before him, and in fact much worse than Besigye, he repeated the same old used and failed strategy of making moral appeals to the country and the outside world that Museveni should behave better, level the playing field, and give him a fair chance.
Museveni’s strategy in every election is based on his relative position. He and his party have control of the state. So he relies on state resources – financial, logistical and military. This is understandable and expected because he has effective personal control over these core elements of the state. He is therefore Goliath. Bobi Wine, on the other hand, has limited resources. It is thus incumbent upon him to design a strategy that matches his ends (wrestling power from Museveni) with the very limited means at his disposal. To do this is in the realm of strategy, something Bobi Wine doesn’t understand. In such a struggle, the underdog has to use asymmetric methods.
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amwenda@ugindependent.co.ug
